Both PHP errors and database errors can manifest as a white screen, a
blank screen with no information, commonly known in the WordPress
community as the WordPress White Screen of Death (WSOD).
Before resorting to desperate measures, there are a number of reasons for the WordPress white screen of death:
- A Plugin is causing compatibility issues. If you can access the Administration Screens
try deactivating all of your Plugins and then reactivating them one by
one. If you are unable to access your Screens, log in to your website
via FTP. Locate the folder wp-content/plugins and rename the Plugin folder plugins_old. This will deactivate all of your Plugins. You can read more about manually deactivating your plugins in the Troubleshooting FAQ.
- Your Theme may be causing the problem. This is especially
likely if you are experiencing the white screen of death after you have
just activated a new Theme, or created a New Site in a WordPress
Network. Log in to the Administration Screens and activate the default WordPress Twenty Sixteen Theme. If you can't access your Administration Screens, access your website via FTP and navigate to the /wp-content/themes/ folder. Rename the folder for the active Theme.
- Your Theme directory may be missing or renamed. This is
common for developers who have just created a local development
environment and cloned the database, which is pointing to a theme (or
theme directory) that might be missing or renamed. To test this
solution, try accessing wp-login.php or /wp-admin/. If you see anything,
this is a good indication it's theme-related. Log in as an
administrator, then try to view the front-end and you should see a
WordPress error message to the effect of: The theme directory
"{theme-name}" does not exist. You can solve this in any n umber of
ways, including switching themes on the admin side, renaming your
directory, or editing the "theme" and "stylesheet" records in wp_options
The WP_DEBUG feature often provides additional information. If you are still experiencing problems and are looking in your error logs you can check out the PHP errors below for more information.